“What the—” Tom the skeleton excimed, bolting up from the crate he was sitting on.

  “Burznarfuogol, Yaturwurtguthvarbu!” the orc chieftain shouted to his panions. “We are utack. Cover our hosts.”

  The other two orcs rushed to the ter without a moment of hesitation, standing in front of Hea and Tristan with their blunt ons at the ready.

  Ren already khe orcs would have to be his first targets, as they posed the biggest threat, but even he was impressed by how fast ahey reacted to his surprise attack.

  “Tell me how to get to your master and we make this end a lot faster,” the champion said.

  “Master?!” the shaken toad said from atop the ter, peeking past one of the orc’s elbows. “What in the world is he talking about?”

  “I know not whom you speak of,” Khargol said with a threatening scowl. “We serve no master, and if you came here looking for an easy battle, you would do well to flee now.”

  “Flee?!” Reed, a bout ant e fring up inside him.

  Those creatures were not only trying to fool him about the ohey served, but they were also insulting him by implying he would have turail and fled from a battle. An easy fight was not what he had e there for, but now he was certainly feeling like getting ara level or two out of it.

  Whether it was information on Balthazar or just pin experience, he would get something out of that enter with those monsters.

  “I’ll show you who is going to be fleeing,” Ren said bitterly as he stepped toward the orc, sword pointed forward.

  Using his keen sehat kept him fully aware of his surroundings at all times, the adventurer realized that the lizard was gone from the dark er of the room. Impressive speed and stealth, but still no match for the champion’s prowess.

  ging his sta the st sed, Ren switched his strike from the orc to the lizardman rushing at him from the side with a spear.

  With a k of metal, the skilled swordsman disarmed the reptilian being in the blink of an eye, but before he could utter a victorious one-lihe orc chieftain took advantage of the opening.

  The orc’s loud roar shook the young man’s ribs from the inside as Khargol sent a mighty punch forward, which was met by Ren’s Defleg Palm skill he acquired from an abandoned mohe week before.

  Surprised by the ease with which the human dismissed his attack, the orc stumbled a few steps to the side.

  “Forfeit now and I—”

  Ren’s eyes widened as his acute sense of hearing picked up a rattling of bones ing up behind him.

  “Clickety cck, get into my sack!” the skeleton yelled as he pulled his bag over the adventurer’s head.

  The human turned his bde up as the bag desded upon him, turning everything dark.

  It took less than a sed for him to feel the orc chieftain taking advantage of the undead’s trick by pummeling him with powerful puo the stomach over the burp bag. They would no doubt be dealing massive damage to his health, were it not for the high defeing provided by the armor ptes he was wearing.

  “Quick, fetch us some rope, Tom,” the young man heard Jath say.

  They were going to capture him. Probably pnning to serve him right up to their master, Balthazar.

  Ren had no iion of letting that happen, however.

  Activating the entment on his longsword, the champion ripped the bag open with a glowing ssh of the bde, followed by a sed swing aimed straight at the leader of the orcs.

  “I’ve got you now, beast!” the bloodthirsty adventurer said.

  And thehinkable happened. Something that Ren did not see ing shot out from a shadowy er of the room and hit him in the back of the hand, disrupting his strike and nearly making him drop his on.

  “What?!” he excimed in disbelief, looking at the feathered dart lodged right between his tendons.

  It was ced with some kind of poison, but that was quickly ralized by his boosted resistances.

  All he mao see was a blurry figure of a sed, female lizard creature vanishing into the shadows just as the lizardman, Jath, brought the tip of his spear down on him.

  “No!” Ren shouted as he dived to the side.

  “Didn’t see my watcher ing, did you, human?” the slender lizard hissed.

  Huffing with a how much trouble a bunch of simple monsters were giving him, the champion decided it was no time to hold back. Even if he would get no ahat night, he would at least send a strong message to his nemesis.

  Grabbing his longsword with both hands, Ren started charging his mana into the most powerful skill in his arsenal. A devastating area of effect attack that would wipe out the entire room and ahin it.

  “Tell Balthazar I am ing for him!” he yelled as his sword began glowing and a circle of wind took shape around him, making the monsters hold back.

  “Balthazar?” Tristan said, poking his head out from behind the ter. “Is this guy like an unsatisfied er or something?”

  “Your master will rue the day he summoned me on that beach! I will find him, and I will get what he took from me.”

  “What in the world are you talking about, son?” Hea shouted over the increasingly louder noise of the wind blowing around the room. “Balthazar is just a mert!”

  “His lies don’t fool me!” Ren’s voice echoed over the storm charging around his bde.

  “I think you must be fused,” said the toad. “Please, just put the sword down a’s talk about it.”

  “Yes, please listen to Hea,” Tristan said.

  “I will hear no lies from monsters,” the adventurer said with bittero his tone. “You all serve as experieo make me stronger.”

  “Is no one gonna do anything about that big glowy attack he’s charging?!” Tom yelled over the deafening wind, holding his hat to his skull.

  “Be vanquished, fiends!” the champion shouted as he lifted the longsword, preparing to strike the floor below and release the charged attack.

  “Oh, for the love of Crea…”

  Out of nowhere, something slimy and sticky jumped on Ren’s face.

  “A bunch of big men standing there and none of you is going to stop him?!” the toad desperately shouted as she held onto the adventurer’s face with all she had. “Do something!”

  The champio out several muffled grunts as he took one hand off the sword and tried to remove the greeure stuck to his face, causing the charged attack to fizzle out before it ever released.

  A toad. Of all the things the prodigal adventurer repared for, a small slimy creature attag itself to him as he was about to unleash a devastating attack was somehow one he hadn’t sidered.

  Angry at the mert’s aplices and at himself, Ren stumbled a few steps back, trying to get a grip ooad, his hand slipping off her wet skin over and ain.

  “Jazk, now!” Jath yelled.

  The shadowy lizard emerged from behind a shelf and spuail around, hitting the back of Ren’s legs and making him fall back.

  “Argh!” he yelled as he hit the floor and the impact caused the toad to fly off his face.

  “Hea!” shouted Tristan as he threw himself over the ter with both hands out. “I’ve got you!”

  The toad nded right into Tristan’s palms with a squeaky noise as the ma out a sigh of relief. “Phew!”

  Before Ren had time to get back up and scramble for his sword, the two orc brothers had already moved on him, holding his shoulders down as their chieftain pnted his foot ohick armor ptes over his stomach.

  “cede,” the stoic orarled.

  “Yes, you should listen to my friend’s wise words, human,” said Jath, pointing the tip of his spear at the champion’s chest, while Jazk held a dagger against his throat.

  “Yeah, yeah, what they said!” the skeleton added as he ed some rope around Ren’s ankles.

  “You will not stop me, monsters,” the adventurer muttered behind grindih. “I will find your master and I will put a stop to his evil deeds.”

  “Evil deeds?” Hea said, hopping bato the ter. “Balthazar might be a bit ky and hard to deal with at times—I would know—but he’s hardly evil. Are you sure you got the right mert?”

  “His mind wiping didn’t work on me aher will your poor attempt at trickery, toad,” Ren spat as the others sat him on a chair, rope tied around both his hands a. “My name is Warre, and mark my words. Even if it takes me a lifetime, I will find that man, and I will make him pay for taking away my life!”

  The group exged fused looks at one another as they gathered closer, l their voices to a hushed tone.

  “Is this guy like…” Tom said, spinning a bony finger arouo his temple. “…or something?”

  “Maybe Balthazar sold him an expired potion out there?” Tristan suggested.

  The young man watched as they talked among themselves. He had been reckless. Allowed his frustrations to speak louder than his rational thinking, and it had cost him a humiliati at the hands of a group of low-level monsters.

  He o get away. To recover and recollect his thoughts.

  Slowly, the adventurer reached behind his belt for a hidden dagger to cut his wrists loose.

  “We could make him talk,” Khargol said to the others, crag his knuckles.

  “We have our own ways to do it too, if you want,” said Jath.

  “Alright, fels, easy,” Tristan said. “The poor boy already thinks we’re monsters, let’s not give him any reason to be right.”

  As they talked, Hea rubbed her glistening thoughtfully. “Wait a minute. What did he say a moment ago? That he would find that… man? Does he not know that Balthazar is a cra—”

  With a blinding fsh and a loud bang, the room started rapidly filling with smoke.

  Ren, free from the ropes, rolled to his longsword as his nemesis’s minions coughed and shouted.

  “He has freed himself,” Khargol yelled. “Get him!”

  But as they all scattered around the bazaar and the smoke cleared, they realized the adventurer was gone, a single broken shutter swinging on its hinge left in the wake of his escape.

  Warren ran.

  The champion ran and ran down the road until he couldn’t see the lights of his archrival’s ir anymore.

  His lungs burned with the cold night air, but that was nothing pared to the pain inflicted to his pride.

  He had beeed for the first time. And not even by Balthazar, but his minions. A toad jumping on his face brought him down.

  Re humiliation like he had never experienced in his entire, perfect life.

  His level 30, all his skills, all his gear, every preparation he had taken. Everything denied by a group of low-grade monsters w together. He barely got away, thanks to some quick thinking, their own momentary distra, and a pocketed smoke bomb he had looted from a dead rogue all the way back when he was level 7.

  The adventurer had suffered a harsh lesson that night which he would not soon fet.

  As the champion disappeared into the depths of the Bck Forest, the cold truth washed over him: if he ever wao face Balthazar himself, he would have to bee stronger. Far strohan anyone else had ever been in that world.

  He would o get real power.